Bodhana Sivanandan, an 11-year-old English chess player, secured her first international master norm at the Dole Trophy tournament held in Aix-en-Provence, France, last Saturday. This achievement set a new world age record for obtaining an IM norm, surpassing the previous benchmark established by Judit Polgar in April 1988 when Polgar was 11 years and nine months old. Sivanandan’s path to the record proved more challenging than Polgar’s, requiring her to compete against a notably strong field.
Sivanandan’s tournament performance demonstrated resilience after an uneven start. Following a first-round victory against the reigning French champion Marc’Andria Maurizzi, she accumulated just 2 points from her first five games while facing formidable opposition including two grandmasters and an international master. However, she produced a significant surge during the final four rounds to ultimately achieve the required norm. Her ninth and final-round game against rising US international master Samrug Narayanan extended for 99 moves and six hours, ending in a draw that left both players as the last competitors remaining in the tournament hall.
Sivanandan’s performance statistics exceeded the threshold required for certification. She achieved a performance rating of 2463 against a field averaging 2420, surpassing the minimum 2450 requirement for an IM norm. Additionally, her performance also exceeded the 2400 rating required for a women’s grandmaster norm. With this achievement, she now needs one additional WGM norm before reaching 12 years and four months of age to claim the WGM title and break the age record set by Russia’s Kateryna Lagno.
Future competitive opportunities await Sivanandan this month and in September, including participation in the British Championship in Coventry and representation on England’s women’s team at the Olympiad in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. Her recent improvement follows a notably weaker performance at the European Women’s Championship in Batumi, Georgia, where she scored 5.5 out of 11 games. Chess theorist Arpad Elo’s observations on talent development suggest that such rapid improvements among young players often occur in sudden jumps rather than gradual progression. Currently, Sivanandan receives limited coaching support from Turkish investor Evren Ucok, though she is positioned as a priority candidate for funding from the government’s new £250,000 annual elite chess grant announced in April.
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